Here is a snippet from Discovery Channel’s live chat transcript with Capt. Phil Harris of the Cornelia Marie….

Discovery: Welcome to our weekly Deadliest Catch chat series. Tonight’s guest is Capt. Phil Harris of the Cornelia Marie. How’s he doing these days? Find out, and see what he thinks about life at sea with his sons, and being on the show.

Phil Harris: I would like to thank everybody that sent cards and presents, little gifts, get well cards, there was a pile of them. I’d like to thank each and every one of you for doing that, you didn’t need to do that. I looked at and read every one of them, and I appreciate it. I’d like to thank the individuals who did that.

eddie and diann: Hey Phil, my wife and I think you and the Cornelia Marie are the best part of the show, so are you getting better?
Phil Harris: It’s hard to say. I’m on a six month program as far as medicine, and I still have 2 months to go before they go back in and see if the blood clot dissolved or if we’re going to have problems. I look better than I did, I was pretty run down. I also have to go to the hospital every three or four days, even now.

Time Bandit fan: Phil what happened to you during the hurricane?
Phil Harris: Well, it was blowing easterly about 100 out, we were hit by a great big wave and it launched me from the bed into the wall.

paula2317: We love watching the show, but being a parent myself, how hard is it to be the dad with the boys on deck as part of the crew?
Phil Harris: Well, it’s kind of hard with those two because Ding and Dong know exactly how to push my buttons like nobody else can. It’s rewarding, being able to watch your kids, and hang out with them in a work environment. It’s sometimes nerve-wracking also because those guys can bring my blood to a boil.

Laura: Hello Captain Phil. How is it working with the film crew?
Phil Harris: The film crew’s great. You start out and you have a time where they’re getting to know you and you’re getting to know them. It’s about a two week thing where you get to know each other and come to some ground and start progressing to where they can get some work done and I respond more to their questions. It takes a little bit, though, a couple week deal before I get to know the guy. The two film crews I’ve had on the boat were great guys. The one was very instrumental in helping me when I was sick. He kind of took care of me, went way above and beyond being a cameraman.

Sarahlu03: Captain Phil, thank you for giving us your time tonight, I am happy to hear that everything is going to be ok with you! I was just wondering why doesn’t the Cornelia Marie have a sorting table like the other boats?
Phil Harris: Number one, I’m not okay yet. Like I said, I still have 2 months to go. We don’t know whether I’m going to be all right or not. I’m kind of in a zone where anything could happen, that blood clot could turn around and go to my heart again, I wouldn’t survive it a second time. I still have 2 months of medication and then we see what’s going.
As far as a sorting table, we have one that’s built into our launcher which we sort from, which is different than the rest of the guys. It works, it’s a lot faster. As time goes by, I might switch to a sorting table like the other guys have. For the time being, our sorting table works great and the guys don’t want to change it.

HeidiJJ: OK, the mullet thing. I’ve been watching since season one, and have never seen any of you guys with an “authentic” mullet. Tell your kids to go rent “Joe Dirt” - that’s a mullet! So is this an inside family joke that just hasn’t been explained well in editing, or are your kids really too young to know? BTW - Your hair? The longer the better!
Phil Harris: Well, thank you very, very much. And that’s exactly the way I feel. They get a kick out of claiming that I have a mullet. They think that’s funny, I try to remind them daily that they’re idiots. But, I just have a normal haircut, it’s the way I’ve worn my hair forever. So, thank you very much for saying something nice about the hairdo.

Lhiiiz: Phil, you credit the camera man with watching over you during your illness, so do you think without him there things would have been…more dire?
Phil Harris: Yeah, they could have. He was there, kept an eye on me. I couldn’t lay down because my lungs were filling up with blood. When I was lying down, Todd made sure if I was falling asleep, that I could clear my lungs, they were filling with blood and you can drown on your own blood. He made sure I was up and okay so that I didn’t drown.

hrussell: Phil, how is your health going? What is going to happen if you can not be on the boat anymore?
Phil Harris: I don’t have an answer to that question, I don’t know what’s going to happen. I’m not ready to retire. I still love what I do. It’s going to be a bad day if they tell me I can’t go back. I don’t know what’s going to happen, I’d probably freak out. I don’t want to think about that. Crabbing’s the only thing I’ve ever done that I enjoy. I hope and pray that’s not the case.

Vickie: I read somewhere that you make bird feeders in your spare time. I was wondering if you sell them online? If so where can I buy one?
Phil Harris: Well, I don’t sell them online. I build them, custom build them. I built one for the president of Boeing. One for a memorial for a kid killed in Iraq. They’re a lot of money, like $1,000 apiece. They’re custom built and I make them especially for that person. I find out what that person likes, what his hobbies are - if he plays golf or whatever - and I build the birdfeeder to match what he does.

slushie000: What’s the rest of your family like?
Phil Harris: Well, there’s only my two boys, my dad and myself. I think everybody knows what my kids are like. And then my dad, He’s kind of the rock of all of us.

With the season finale already here and gone I thought it would be a good time to reflect on another season in the books for the crews on the Bering Sea. The season was filled with plenty of drama, as Capt. Phil became ill and his fishing career is now still questionable. There was the usual mix of bad weather, moody captains and struggling greenhorns that also provide a glimpse into the reality of it all. When Capt. Keith from the Wizard’s temper began to boil over (almost steadily) there was plenty of friendly banter on the web with people trying to decide if they love him or hate him.

With all that said I though I would open the comment section below to hear from everyone what exactly stood out for you this past season. Good or bad, let’s hear it…

Read the rest of Deadliest Catch Creator Thom Beers’ account aboard the F/V Fierce Allegiance from the forthcoming book, Deadliest Catch: Desperate Hours.
________

After several days of picking crab, I started to develop what crabbers call “the claw,” which meant my hands wouldn’t open completely. My heavy rubber gloves couldn’t keep the frigid water from numbing my hands. They throbbed and wouldn’t open. Captain Rick and his deck boss, Tony, had seen this many times before and offered up a rather unusual cure: Ureic acid would make the pain go away. They told me to go out on deck and pee on my hands. This was the tonic. So I followed the prescription, and as I finished I looked up in the wheelhouse and caught a quick glimpse of the skipper and his deck boss having a great laugh at my expense. I was a greenhorn on their ship and I paid my dues.

There was also sadness that season. Several boats sank in the heavy seas, and seven men didn’t return home to their loved ones. This is the baggage carried by anyone who’s worked the Bering Sea. We all know someone who hasn’t returned, and it lays heavy in our souls.

Something changes in a person once he’s spent time at sea and I’m no exception. When I returned to Dutch Harbor after the journey, I saw a different man in the mirror. A heavy growth of face fuzz wasn’t the only thing different. I could see it in my eyes. I’d survived and even thrived on this adventure. I spent the day walking around Dutch and grunting like a feral beast. Words didn’t come to me till the second day on land. I felt like I’d spit in the eye of the devil and returned from hell to tell my story.

This spirit carries over to the 100 or so men and women that help create Deadliest Catch. Each November our teams of producers and cinematographers start the adventure again in the tiny town of Dutch Harbor on a small island called Unalaska, stranded in the middle of the Aleutians. Once there our film crews will again set sight on the dented sturdy steel ships that make up the crab fishing fleet. With their hearts in their throats and their hands on their duffels, they’ll bravely board and head out of port for another season. The vast Bering Sea will be waiting for them.

They’ll work under brutal conditions. Freezing cold winds will whip through their constantly damp slicks, bringing chill to the bone. Black ice will creep and thicken on the deck below their nearly frostbitten feet. Giant waves will breach their workspace, threatening to sweep them into oblivion. The constant churn of the sea and the rhythm of the workers will test even the finest of our storytellers. These brave producers and cinematographers will have to keep one ear open for story and the other for the warning buzzer. They’ll keep one eye on the frame, while the other eye scans the deck for danger. All of this will question their purpose and remind them how fragile their very
existence is.

I am proud of all our teams who continue to go to sea, who put themselves in harm’s way to follow the stories and witness the dreams fulfilled by the men and women who venture out on crab boats and together create this magically compelling never-ending drama called Deadliest Catch.
___________

One of the adventurous producers and cinematographers Beers describes returns to share his behind-the-scenes insights. Look out for Doug Stanley’s production diary on our site with the return of the new season of Deadliest Catch on April 15.

The first season of Deadliest Catch premiered April 12, 2005, but the story of how Deadliest Catch began starts in 1998, when Thom Beers, creator and executive producer of the series, stepped aboard the F/V Fierce Allegiance. It was an adventure he wouldn’t soon forget and inspiration for the Emmy-nominated show. His experience and the series have also inspired a new book — Deadliest Catch: Desperate Hours— to be released on discoverystore.com April 8. The following is an excerpt from Thom Beers’ forward to the book.
________

In 1998, I was asked by the Discovery Channel to produce a TV special called Extreme Alaska. It would be an anthology of all things dangerous in our 49th state. I spent the next six months filming winter rescue teams, the brutal head-banging battles of mating musk ox, volcano chasers, shipwrecks and salvage companies, bush pilots, and the mystery of a body found after five years in a glacier. I filmed it all and thought I had seen it all until I went to shoot the final segment: crab fishing. I had read the great Spike Walker book, Working on the Edge, about surviving in the Alaskan crab fishing industry on the frigid black waters of the Bering Sea. I thought I was well prepared for my journey. Unbeknownst to my wife, who knew nothing of my plans, I doubled my life insurance policy and quietly slipped out the door for the adventure of a lifetime.

I had secured three spots on the Fierce Allegiance from Capt. Rick Mezich. Two cameramen and I jumped aboard the 183-foot vessel, a refitted Mississippi mud boat built to ferry drilling mud and pipe to the offshore oil fields south of the New Orleans Delta. It was a great choice of boat. It was big and it had a couple of extra berths and a great crew.

Heading out to sea made me think of Gilligan’s expectations for his life-changing three-hour cruise. I suspected that it was going to be a hard slog for a three- or four-day adventure filled with unique visuals and great characters working in a dangerous environment. What I didn’t expect was the storm that moved in quickly when we were 200 miles at sea. Within 48 hours of my departure, the Fierce Allegiance was facing 70-knot winds and 40-foot seas. My short adventure turned into eight long hellish days of massive weather, huge waves and bone-chilling gusts of frigid cold. Through it all, Rick and his crew refused to stand down and worked the heavy chop. The weather doubled the days of fishing, and my crew and I continued to videotape it all. Massive waves crashing over the deck knocked the crew around like bags of potatoes in a wash cycle.

The boat went up mountainous seas and crashed down five-story slides. Full waves called “green water” rolled over the wheelhouse on several occasions, threatening to blow the windows out and send us all to the bottom. But the crew kept fishing over those long January nights, the cameras catching every move. The heavy yellow from the sodium lights bouncing off the crews’ orange Grundens created a near-surreal image.

The Bering Sea was relentless, pounding the boat and the crew, but the powerful deck lights couldn’t cut into the water. The sea was liquid ice, 32 degrees, as cold, black and heartless as a shark’s stare. If you went overboard, your life expectancy would be only four minutes. But the brave crew ignored it all. Pot after pot, the crab kept coming. Fishing was good and the holds filled with a bounty of “bugs.” There was a lot of money to be made and I witnessed men — some barely out of high school, some seldom out of trouble and a few mostly out of luck — earn a good chunk of cash in that week.

It wasn’t all hard work. There was time for fun. I spent several days working on the deck sorting crabs between camera reloads. Pushing the “keepers” into the holding tanks and the undersized to the “shit chute.” I was getting pretty good at it, but the fatigue of 20-hour workdays, little appetite and a constant dose of Asian flu slowed me down just enough for a crab to get his crusher claw around my thumb. Seventy pounds of pressure doesn’t sound like much till it’s clamped onto your appendage. It was like a 70-pound steel crowbar dropped on your thumb. It hurt like hell and after a single yelp I spun the crab in a circle, which made his claw leg come loose from both his body and my thumb.

_____

We’ll continue with another excerpt from the book in our next post. While you await the arrival of our Deadliest Catch book, you should also anticipate your own Deadliest Catch adventure with the new game inspired by Sig Hansen — Deadliest Catch: Alaskan Storm. In this 3-D extravaganza, you’ll be able to captain the Northwestern and the Cornelia Marie with their actual crews and simulate barreling through realistic-looking Bering Sea waves. The game for Xbox 360 and PC will be available in stores April 8th, and you’ll be able to preview the game on our site, too.

See what Sig had to say about the game. Watch now.

You may not have seen much of the Early Dawn last season, but that may change in Season 4. The 108-foot house forward vessel was captained by Allen Oakley last year, but his deck boss, Rick Fehst, steps into the wheelhouse this season.

Oakley, co-owner of the Early Dawn, can rest easy as Fehst has captained in the past. He’ll be full time this year. Fehst loves to fish and would spend 12 months of the year fishing if he could. He knows this crew well, and he’ll be working them to their full potential to reach their 325,000-pot quota.

In other news, our marketing team went to Dutch last month to do a photo shoot with the captains and interview them for the new season. In the middle of the shoot, the Unalaskan winds took hold of Keith Colburn’s lucky hat, depositing it into the frigid harbor below. Like most crab fishermen, Keith is superstitious. He never fishes without his well-worn baseball hat. Shooting had to stop as he rushed to fish his hat out of the sea with a hook. But make no mistake — Keith would have jumped into the beastly cold water to get that hat back. Luckily, that hook was handy. Hopefully, it’ll be a good season from the Wizard.

VIDEO EXTRAS
*Check out video of Early Dawn deckhand Mike Fish from last season.
*Wizard captain Keith Colburn talks about controlling chaos.